WASHINGTON'S PICKLEBALL LICENSE PLATE
Action Alert
DO YOU WANT A PICKLEBALL LICENSE PLATE IN 2025?
The Washington State Legislature is in session, and your support is needed to ensure that House and Senate legislators hear your “Yes!”
House bill 1368 has a companion Senate bill, SB5444. Support of one supports the other.
The legislative session ends April 27. Comments encouraging legislators to schedule a hearing and a vote are needed early in the session.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Step 1: Tell your legislators to pass HB 1368 and SB5444 here.
Step 2: Spread the word!
The State Sport Specialty license plate
Pickleball became the official state sport in March 2022 when Senate Bill 5615 was signed into law on Bainbridge Island. Soon after, the Seattle Metro Pickleball Association (SMPA) decided our state sport deserved a state license plate.
In 2023, Senator John Lovick and the Seattle Metro Pickleball Association collaborated on Senate Bill 5333, with Senator Lovick serving as the bill’s legislative sponsor and SMPA serving as the non-profit sponsor. SMPA submitted the required documentation and exceeded the 3,500 signatures required by the Department of Licensing. SMPA also held a poll, with the public casting votes for favorite design.
The official signature launch began in September 2022 at Mariners Pickleball Night. With the help of volunteers and clubs throughout Washington, 3,855 signatures were obtained by December 2022.
In the 2023 legislative session, SB5333 cleared the Senate but did not get a House hearing. It was resubmitted without success in 2024.
As is typical every legislative biennium, resubmitted bills receive new bill numbers. In 2025, the pickleball license plate was consolidated with other license plates into one bill with a companion bill, HB 1368 and SB5444.
The seven specialty license plates up for consideration in 2025 are State Sport (pickleball), Working Forests, Mount St Helens, Smokey Bear, LeMay America’s Car Museum, Northwest Nautical and Keep Washington Evergreen.
The legislature has not passed a specialty license plate bill since Patches Pal in 2022. Legislative sponsors of the Mount St Helens license plate have made annual attempts to pass their plate since 2019.
Proceeds from license plate sales will be used for the construction and maintenance of dedicated pickleball courts throughout Washington.
In 2022, SMPA engaged four illustrators to create license plate designs. A poll let the public choose a favorite from eight submissions. With over fifty percent of the vote, Pickleball Rising (shown in heading) won the design contest.
The winning design, Pickleball Rising, was created by Jason Laramie of Laramie Studio in Seattle. Laramie’s design was inspired by the ferry ride from Bainbridge Island, the birthplace of pickleball. The view is towards the east, where a pickleball rises like the sun over Washington State. Laramie is a Board Certified Medical Illustrator with twenty years of experience. He specializes in transforming complex information into engaging visuals for the medical field and jury trials. But he also likes to dabble in fun projects like ours and we are proud a local designed the plate.